A move back home?

We are officially homeless. We made the move back to Atlanta from Boston; granted nearly everything we own is in storage. We will miss those in Boston who have touched our lives. We learned so much from them and we are grateful for the friendships we have made. We thank those who helped us so much while we were there. All of the wonderful people in the photo below are those who were able to come help us pack up on a Monday night. Thank you Dan, Tim, Mike?, Chris, the Kang family and Bishop McKechnie with his girls. We have been blessed by our experience in Boston. We loved it so much that we hope that one day we can return. Who knew that Boston was such a spectacular place?
Day 1: The first leg of our trip took us to Flushing, New York. Willie's mission! Through facebook I spoke with Candy and we set up a gathering of those who Willie taught. I knew that Willie was extremely excited to visit his old stomping grounds. He was ecstatic about seeing old friends again. We had a great Chinese dinner. I even tried jellyfish. Chewy. Thank you for dinner our friends. Day 2: The second part of our journey took us to Washington D. C. We had hoped to stop in Philadelphia to visit a friend of mine but the circumstances did not allow such a visit. Bummer. We did get to drive through a big rain storm in D.C. where it took us an additional hour or two to get to our destination. We just happened to drive by the Temple so we pulled off the freeway to avoid some traffic and see a beautiful site.
We stayed with some of our old friends from Utah State/Boise. We had some fun with them. Thanks for hosting us.Piper was a treat. She and the boys stayed in one room together. We found out that Piper stayed up extra late working on a project. She found some baby powder and started distributing it to Parker and Lincoln, but first was her baby. Parker had a line of baby powder on his head. Lincoln was lucky, the powder was nearly gone when Piper got to him.
Her poor baby was received the first blow.We made it to Atlanta after another two days of travel. We stayed with the Merkley family. Thank you so much for letting us stay with you. We all got together, the Merkley's, the Salmon's and us. We let the kids go to bed and we stayed up enjoying each others company. After being friends for two years we finally have a group shot. I think it turned out rather nicely. Thanks for being our great friends.
p.s. this post is incomplete. I have forgotten a few things but one day I will hopefully write them down. :)

MONSTERS!

Here is the story on the monsters. About a month ago Willie and I heard a crash from somewhere in the house. We didn't really care to check it out because it was late and we were a bit sleepy. In the morning we found the something had fallen in the boys' closet and it knocked the vacuum out of the closet. Over the next few weeks Parker kept waking up with nightmares and monsters. He told Willie one Sunday that "the monsters are coming for Parker." We called my sister up to find out how to handle the situation. She suggested a 'monster spray.' We gave it a try by putting water in a spray bottle and making a special spray. Parker didn't mind spraying everything in the house. The monsters didn't go away though. This idea I think works on older children. We noticed that Parker kept pulling the 'monster' out on us. We gave him so much attention that it was working against us.
P-man slept in our bed a few nights in a row and that just had to stop. He doesn't sleep in his bed anymore. He has chosen to sleep in our second pack-n-play. We decided to sing the monster to sleep. We sing 'I'm a Child of God' to the monster because that's what we sing when the boys go to bed. It works on occasion. The most recent success has been the "patula" = "spatula." Willie takes it in the boys' room and Parker points out where the monster is and Willie hit him. Near the beginning we tried saying prayers to ask for protection through the night. This works on occasion as well.
Just yesterday I saw Parker holding a puff out and saying 'here you go monster'. He was trying to feed the monster Lincoln's puffs. I told Parker that he was so nice to give the monster food. When we brush our teeth the monster will come and we put Parker up on the counter to brush his teeth. We know that Parker is using the monster as an excuse to get up on the counter. We try to put him up before he can mention the monster. I think this monster will be a part of our lives for awhile.

Happy Birthday.

Well there is nothing fancy about growing old. We celebrated my birthday by giving our boys some of the larger Christmas presents we wanted them to have. Parker and Lincoln have a new table and some trains. Willie took Parker out to get a present for me from Parker. They drove down to the local CVS pharmacy and picked out a sweet gift. Willie kept telling Parker that they needed to keep the gift a secret for two days. No matter how much Willie tried to get the idea through to Parker it didn't work. As the boys were coming home I could hear Parker just outside the door saying 'Mommy's airplane.' When he came in the door he was so excited to tell me about 'Mommy's airplane.' Parker grabbed the gift from Willie and brought it over to show me. We decided to open the present right away. It was a HotWheels airplane. I have enjoyed the airplane a lot. I think that Parker gets to play with it more than me though.
We had a birthday cake made of pumpkin cookies in the shape of a flower. Parker we kind to blow the candles out for me.
Willie bought me some fun flowers. After a week they are still alive and kicking. Willie is an amazing husband and he makes my life fun.Earlier in the day I took the kids on a walk. It was a nice fall day. The sun wasn't shining but the weather was fabulous. Parker was excited to wear his new attire. We picked up some boots, coat and snowpants on craigslist for $25. I didn't think it was too bad of a deal.We didn't have the strollers around so Lincoln got to ride on my back. He sure was a cutie. I think he enjoyed the ride.As for our 'going out' celebrations we went down to the Museum of Science. We had such a great time. The Harry Potter Exhibit was the main event for the evening. We couldn't take pictures but it really was cool seeing many of the items from the movies. One of the first things we did as we entered the exhibit was watch some clips from the films. They showed the Hogwarts Express and Parker said out loud, "Train!" He kept saying it over and over again. The doors opened to the next room and they had the train right there. Willie kept taking Parker back to the train many times as we visited the exhibit. They had a dragon head and Parker kept calling it a monster (more on that later).

Follow by example.

Today I had the internet pulled up on the computer. I left the computer for awhile to get some other work done. Parker walked over and got up on the chair. As he was playing with the mouse he said, 'I just gonna check my emaol.' He scrolled down a little with the roller on the mouse and then said, 'I done checkin' my emaol.' I guess I spend too much time checking my email and voicing it.

Lincoln loves the game pat-a-cake. Today he started clapping on his own. We were very excited for him.

T-Ball

Here is the t-ball video I thought that I had posted. We like P-mans aim.

Fun At Home.

We do try to have fun doing things other than the Boston Attractions. We try to go to the local park on nice days. We play t-ball with Willie when he comes home. Parker is a bit of a lazy player and he just doesn't understand the rules; man, two year olds! The video of Parker playing t-ball will help you to understand my comment. Lincoln and Parker are becoming really good friends. Just yesterday Parker was telling Lincoln that they needed to take bites of their food at the same time and to say 'aaahhhuummm!' Bath time can get a little crazy. We sometimes decide to pull the curtain so we don't have to get too wet. Lincoln loves to splash and Parker has learned to lay down on his back and kick the water all over.
When Parker gets running around the house in circles Lincoln is close by laughing as Parker rounds a corner. They are good brothers and they have too much fun together. There are times when they need alone time with either Willie or I but overall they just love being together.
This picture is of Lincoln eating a puzzle piece to a Thomas book that we have.
Lincoln has developed some bad habits from Parker though. Parker is going on to too many months off the white stuff and insists on only drinking H2O. Before we started Lincoln on drinking formula from a bottle we thought we were going to be in big trouble. Lincoln always watches Parker drink from a sippy cup. Lincoln became accustomed to drinking water from a sippy cup. He loves it. In fact he knows how to hold the sippy and not the bottle.

I asked Parker one day if he wanted to help me feed Lincoln. What a cute kid, he loves to help. I loved watching Parker open his mouth as he was feeding Lincoln his food. We all open our mouths when we feed babies at some point in our lives. Parker made pancakes one morning. We eat pancakes EVERYDAY! Willie and I are sick of them. But look how good Parker did getting the batter on the griddle.
The new train plate is really nice. It never really goes in the dishwasher because Parker has to eat from it at every meal. We wash it frequently. In the collage below is a picture of the excess syrup that remained on Parker's plate. It's a good thing it has sides. Parker decided to get himself some syrup one day when Willie and I weren't watching. Ever since P-man doesn't like as much syrup, he will throw a fit if it runs off the pancake. Willie became creative and started making train pancakes for Parker. We are both becoming pretty talented in the pancake department. I have a better video but it wouldn't upload.

I was walking into boys' room when I heard Parker say 'Lincon, I'm trying to sleep, it's nap time.' Parker was laying on the ground with a blanket over him with his head on his new Thomas chair and Lincoln had the Tigger walker toy on top of Parker trying to push it. I had to chuckle. I just said to myself, 'now you know what it's like when I try to sleep and you are doing something like that to me.'
Parker turned to me one day and said 'Mommy, I like you toe much.' toe = so What a cutie pie.

Another day at Mt. Auburn

This post doesn't need much in the way of words. We loved Mt. Auburn so much that we went back. We took the boys in their costumes to get some fun pictures. The leaves were at their peak coloring. We had so much fun walking around in 70 degree weather with a good breeze. Our first and perhaps only fall in Boston has been the best fall we have ever experienced.



I love these cute boys.